NEWS:
Amnesty International says Israel should end “administrative detention” without trial. PM Netanyahu is seeking to relocate an “unauthorized” settlement outpost. The PA says Israeli prison guards attacked and beat Palestinian prisoners. Israel arrests three Gaza fishermen. Palestinians create a new electoral system for the PNC. Two Palestinians are wounded in new Israeli airstrikes on Gaza. The
Knesset rejects a bill that would “legalize” “unauthorized” Israeli settlements built on privately-owned Palestinian land. Netanyahu says he will personally head a new ministerial committee on settlement
affairs. Pres. Obama reportedly says he's concerned about the PA's interest in peace. Pres. Abbas urges Israelis not to turn their backs on peace. Submarine sales to Israel are controversial in Germany. A judo athlete from occupied East Jerusalem will be the first Palestinian to officially compete in the Olympics.
COMMENTARY:
ATFP Pres. Ziad J. Asali contemplates the lessons of the Nakba. The New York Times welcomes Netanyahu's decision to abide by the Supreme Court ruling on the Ulpana settlement and says Israel should cease all settlement activity. Miko Peled says his father believed Israel lost a golden opportunity for peace in 1967. Carlo Strenger says Netanyahu's government relies on stereotypes of Arabs. Allison Good says Americans should invest in Palestine.

If ever there were two countries with a truly "special relationship", they are Germany and Israel.
For obvious reasons of history, they are bound together. The genocidal madness of a previous generation of the one and the suffering of the victims of a previous generation of the other make them intertwined in a way no other two countries are.
But is the relationship changing? There are certainly signs that it is being re-examined in Germany. What was taken as a given in the past is now up for questioning.

Palestinian sports just made history: 28-year-old Maher Abu Ramila from Jerusalem’s Old City, met the Olympic qualifications and earned a trip to compete in the 2012 London Olympic games next month. Thus he has become the first Palestinian athlete to compete in the games on his own merit, and not as a “solidarity gesture” — awarded by the Olympic committee as a mark of identification.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday called on Israel “not to turn [its] back to the prospects of peace” and cautioned that the chances to achieve peace may not remain for too long.

Learning from the NakbaATFP World Press Roundup Article
from Common Ground News Service
by
Ziad Asali
-
(Opinion)
June 5, 2012 - 12:00am

I do not need anyone to teach me about the Palestinian Nakba. It is the defining moment of my existence. During the war in 1948, my family had already fled our home in Talpiot in southeast Jerusalem and taken shelter in a monastery. We quickly gathered some possessions and climbed down and up the mountain to Bethany, and then to Jericho.

A Glimmer?ATFP World Press Roundup Article
from The New York Times
(Editorial)
June 5, 2012 - 12:00am

There is a plenty of blame to be shared for why peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians are going nowhere. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence on expanding Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem are a big part of the problem. There may be some glimmer of hope in Mr. Netanyahu’s decision to support an Israeli Supreme Court order to close an illegal neighborhood, known as Ulpana, in the West Bank settlement of Beit El.

In early June 1967, as I cowered with my mother and sisters in the "safest" room of our house near Jerusalem — the downstairs bathroom — we feared the worst. None of us imagined that the war that had just begun would end in six days.

In a move meant to placate right-wing ministers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that he will head a new ministerial committee that would deal with settlement affairs.
The announcement was made hours before the Knesset convened to vote on a bill aiming to legalize homes built on contested land in the West Bank.

Israel's Knesset on Wednesday voted down a bill that aimed at legalizing homes on the Ulpana Hill neighborhood in the West Bank settlement of Beit El, which were built on privately owned Palestinian land.
In a preliminary reading, 69 Knesset members voted against the bill, while 22 voted for it.